July 28th
In blank sex everything tangible about your partner is transformed into something that excites and weakens you, seems irreplaceable, his breath, even physical defects, and all these things are somehow necessary for your physical survival or salvation, and yet you know you can never possess them even as you caress them and try to convince yourself that contact with them in the heat of sex is the same as claiming them, having them forever, which in your heart you know is untrue, and thus the tonus of despair.
—Norman Rush, from Mating